Following the horrible experience with my previous hosting service, I transfered all my sites to a new hosting service. Here I have a dedicated server, and am actually paying less money per year for it. And a benefit of having a dedicated server is that I can add new websites for only the cost of registering a new domain.
With the lower cost of a new website, I have been scratching my head for what new webistes I want to create. I finally created a site for my car called Green Car MPG. I also registered a domain, and put up a site to sell my shareware program.
I want to try an experiment. I had done something on this website a few years ago that brought my earnings up to the highest they had been, before they plummeted to nothing. I had created some new themes, and a plugin that pointed to this site. I don’t want to damage this site. But I created a new site called How To Make Money Blogging. I have some stuff on there right now, and will continue adding information. I have a the crawlpage plugin available for download. I am also looking at adding the themes designed for Google Adsense ads.
Anyway, if you are looking for information about how to set up a blog, and make money blogging, visit my new How To Make Money Blogging site at: http://www.makemoneyblogginghowto.com

The company I work for granted us stock option years ago. They were good for 10 years. Way back then, our company was doing very well. Our stock went up and we split every year, for like 9 or 10 years in a row. The gave us these stock options. But then our company joined the S&P 500 and then the stock price stablized. It stopped going up, and just sort of stagnated. I already exercised the first round of stock options a few years ago. They were actually worth a bit of money, though nowhere near what we we hoping they would be worth after 10 years.
The next round of stock options was due to expire in July. I had to decide whether I wanted to wait to see if the stock went up, or cash them now. The market could go down again. Ack! I was originally granted 250 shares I think, and I had 375 after the last 3/2 stock split.
I decided to go ahead and exercise the stock options. I had to set up an account with Merrill Lynch. After a couple days I was set. I went ahead and did a cashless exercise. This means that I don’t have to use any of my own money. The brokerage buys the stock at the grant price, and turns around and sells it right away at the market price, and I get the difference.
After the cashless exercise, I am getting about $2200. Not alot considering I have held these things for 10 years. But then, I got them for free. I don’t think they quite turned out like the company had intended, or like the employees had hoped. Oh well.
I plan to apply the money towards paying down my credit card. I had my credit card at a zero balance at one point. I hope to get back there again! I am making very good progress.

I was doing some spring cleaning, and stumbled on some junk mail that had been gotten shoved in a box. One of the things in the box was OTC Market Digest-Fall 2007 (Powerful Picks for Rapid Returns) . These things are so funny! These are like those spam emails that come touting a stock, where the senders have loaded up on some garbage stock, then when everyone buys the stock based on the email, they unload the stock at a profit.
The “issue” came apparently in Fall of 2007. The cover price was $29.95! For laughs and giggles, I decided to check out the stock they were recommending, but a year and a half after the fact. I looked up the stock symbol TCHH.OB, and got a message saying it wasn’t found. I searched for “Trustcash Holdings, Inc” and found it’s symbol had changed to TCHH.PK. It’s last trade was 0.0032. So less than a penny a share. Actually, I could buy 3 shares for a penny. Gee, I wonder how many shares there are, I could maybe buy the whole company for a some small amount. LOL! I tried to look at the history of the stock, to see where it had been in 2007, but there was no history. Probably because it is so small, that they don’t bother keeping it’s history.
Oh, I went to check out the website of “OTC Market Digest” (www.otcmarketdigest.com), and it doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
So be very careful about stock recommendations!

Thankfully our taxes are done. I love having a CPA. He costs a bunch of money, but he saves us way more money and stress than what he costs!
It turns out that we are going to get a refund from the IRS for about $800, but on the other hand we will owe New York State about $200. So overall we were pretty close! We still need to sign the forms and get them back to the CPA. Also we have to send off check to NYS and CPA.
I have a friend who had the accountant do his taxes one year, then once they knew the deductions, they did their own taxes after that.
But our tax situation changes so much from year to year. My websites earn more or less money. My wife just started school last year. She is working part time instead of full time. All these things change.
Last time I tried to do our taxes using the software, it said we owed $5000 Federal and I hadn’t even gotten to state yet. I freaked out. We ended up owing only abut $2000. $2000 is alot, but it is alot less than $5000. A lot of that savings was due to deductions related to my home business of creating websites and making money online.
Speaking of websites, I create a new blog website titled Relearning Guitar. I am also considering creating one for rock hounding which is something my wife and I have recently gotten into. Each of my blog sites brings in a little money, but it all adds up. I am currently making between $1000-$1500/month in extra income! Nice!

* 4/22/08 – I went ahead and created the rock hounding site I mentioned. It is titled Rocks & Gemstones

I am not sure what mailing list my wife got on. I get a lot of investing come-ons myself. But then my wife got a “magazine” thing in the mail titled “Intelligent Investor Report” The subtitle is Your Guide To Investing In An Age Of Terrorism. The copy we got is the Summer 2007 edition, and there is a cover price of $9.95. It’s only 16 pages including the front and back covers.
I started looking through the magazine, and start laughing. The cover is touting some over the counter stock for some sort of healthcare company I have never heard of. I look further inside the magazine, and found that nearly every page was touting this same OTCBB stock! It’s basically a 16 page advertisement to buy a specific over the counter stock! I guess we are lucky enough to be in the inner circle to get this stock tip! LOL!
This reminds me of those emails I get telling me about some penny stock that is going to soar. Those are scams. The people have bought up quantities of some penny stock, the send out a bunch of spam emails saying the stock will rise. Then a bunch of greedy rubes buy the stock, and sure enough, the price of the stock does rise. Then the people who sent the emails cash out making a large profit on a stock. It’s market manipulation.
But this Intelligent Investor Report thing reminds me of those emails. And it’s funny! In the back, I can subscribe to this “magazine” for $189 for 24 issues, or $97 for 12 issues. Of course they throw in some FREE stuff. LOL!
I may send the thing to the FTC or the SEC or someone and let them decide if it is a scam.
Of course, the joke will be on me if the company they are promoting turns our to be the next Microsoft. BTW, I have purposely not mentioned the company here.